Welcome to the age of artificial intelligence. If you're reading this article, it's probably because you hear about AI everywhere and don't know how to navigate it yet. This guide will explain the essentials, without jargon, in 15 minutes. What is AI in simple terms? Artificial intelligence is a set of technologies that allow computers to perform tasks that previously required human intelligence: understanding language, recognizing images, making decisions, creating content. What we call 'generative AI' (ChatGPT, Claude, Midjourney) is the technology that generates new content — text, images, audio, video — from a simple description
How it works (simplified)
these models were trained on billions of documents, books, websites and code. They learned the patterns of human language and can predict the most likely continuation of a text. It's not magic — it's very sophisticated statistics
The main models to know in 2026
ChatGPT (OpenAI) — the best known, GPT-4o in limited free version, GPT-4o and o3 in paid version. Claude (Anthropic) — known for thoughtful responses, ethical reasoning and the ability to handle long documents. Gemini (Google) — integrated into Google services, strong on web search. Mistral — the European champion, open-source, fast. Llama (Meta) — the most powerful open-source model
How to start
create a free account on Claude.ai or ChatGPT.com
Start with simple tasks
ask to explain a concept, summarize a text, correct an email. Progress to more advanced uses as you understand the capabilities
What AI CANNOT do
access the internet in real time (except specific versions), remember your previous conversations (except with memory feature enabled), have real opinions or emotions, or guarantee the accuracy of all its answers. AI is here to stay and will continue to evolve rapidly — better to get comfortable with this tool now